A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words…

pic1

Care to take a guess what this is, and how it got that way? :) Please formulate your answer before clicking on the jump and reading other comments and guesses…

That’s what is known as a teaser. And I am curious how many of you will figure out the answer. And the details of your answer are important to really nail this on the head. A post on the subject will be up in a few days. I suspect a majority of you will love it.

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Marketman

Marketman is a well-traveled management consultant who loves buying, cooking and eating good food. Read more »

157 Responses

  2. Your nth attempt to perfect the lechon recipe yielded a beautiful brown lechon skin that was very crispy; As to how you came about the perfectly looking crunchy skin, then I really have to wait for that post. =)

  5. itlooks like peanut brittle from good shepherd but is it crackling???pork skin sprayed(?) with water as it is frying to get those bubbles on the surface???…juice mio!masarap na naman ito!!!

  8. That is a yummy looking pork skin! However it’s cooked, I’ll have my favorite sawsawan ready. ;)

  18. pork skin with a result only attained by DEEP FRYING (or a very hot oven), deep frying sounds so much better!

  20. My wild guess is that it is PRITCHON for the Market Man’s LECHON SERIES!!=D certainly looks like one, especially the charred pig’s hair hehehe!=P

    Hope I got it right!=D

  23. My guess is Lechon Kawali marinated in herbs…ding ding ding.. MM, do we get a prize?

  24. pig skin, boiled then dried then fried a la lechon kawali, and that’s the pig hair that did not get shaved.

  25. Either Lechon Kawali or MM’s version of hornong/baked liempo! Crispy skin but the inside is soft and still juicy!

  26. Pig skin (whole lechon or liempo?) pricked with fork and sun/air dried before deep frying. oil bath sprinkled with cold water while pork is being cooked.

  27. I am, guesing lechon skin as well, for the same reason as there appears to be hair. And because you have been trying to perfect the perfect lechon recipe. :)

  30. Ok, seriously now. You went to Bohol so you must have dropped by your office in Cebu. There, you took another jab at your Lechon experiment. It seems most commenters are guessing lechon skin as well… How it got all the blisters? Hmmm, maybe you used a small suckling pig and blanched the whole carcass in hot water first and air dried it before roasting? And you religiously basted the skin with the drippings while roasting? And the skin must have been salted generously with rock salt? ???

  34. At first glance I’d say crackling lechon kawali skin but on the other hand it does resemble some kind of peanut brittle/pilinut brittle or just plain bubbly caramelized sugar!What is it MM?

  39. that looks like a piece of bagnet: first boiled down until almost-off-the-bone tender, and with a little less of the fat; then dried under low heat in an oven; then given an initial frying to remove some of the moisture; a second drying in a low heat oven to remove moisture and render more of the fat; then a second frying to attain ultimate crunchiness, and the aesthetics of blistered skin — just like lola used to make. :)

  44. I feel this is part of your lechon series! Don’t know how this was done but definitely with herbs (rosemary included). In any case, it looks YUMMY. and SINFUL. :)

  47. Lechon kawali skin! Got that way cos water was sprinkled on it while it was frying in super-hot oil!….or cooked sago that was left out in the sun too long and dried out. nahulugan pa ng seeds ng flowering cosmos plant. Hehe

  48. it’s pork skin either lechon (regular) or kawali and are those pig hair jutting out from the skin?

  51. I think it’s lechon kawali skin… boiled until soft. Spinkled with herbs (rosemary? thyme?) and deep-fried.

    Whatever it is, I’d certainly put THAT in my mouth! =)

  54. Chicharon or lechon kawali with some kind of sauce poured on it before frying/re-frying?

  55. Going for fried lechon, too. But ick, someone mentioned hairs? I also thought they were rosemary…. I’m sticking with that to keep my lunch in! :p

  58. it looks to me it is the skin of a lechon kawali..and yeah, at first look it was pig’s hair.

  60. Blistered pork skin. I’m sorry but I don’t agree with anyone who would call this “Lechon skin” (but calling it Lechon kawali or al horno skin gets a pass). It’s blistered pork skin. It’s easy to get extremely crispy pork skin while blistering it. You can get those results using an oven. The holy grail has always been a smooth, shiny skin that is caramelized, thin, and crispy. That’s what I consider a true Lechon.

  61. HI EVERYONE, GEEZ, 59 COMMENTS IN LESS THAN 3 HOURS! :) AND SO FAR, NONE OF YOU HAS NAILED IT ON THE HEAD, SO KEEP AT IT… Remember, you need to say what it is and how it got that way…. heeheehee.

  62. Its not animal. Definitely something sweet, sticky and chewy.COmmon MarketMan, out with the answer!

  63. Yey Marketman,

    It’s your next episode of my favorite food. It’s the recipe/episode of the triple by-pass surgery dish. Folks start to take your cholesterol pill and take a dip on the deep in because this is going to be good. Yum, yum w/the liver sauce, ay naku patay.

  64. Looks like lechon skin but I would like to make a wild guess if you say everyone hasn’t nailed it yet. It’s peanut brittle with the sugar just starting to caramelize.

  65. marketman,

    know what i take that back, on the second look, seems like the same lechon they have over here in chinatown deli shop in chinatown SF/BAY AREA or it’s just plain lechon kawali from a deep fried side pork. this difinitely not the regular filipino lechon. 1st, the animal where this piece of meat came from an older animal judging from the thickness of the skin. 2nd,if this is from a young animal the skin won’t blister that much. also problem from an older animal is the skin is so thick that you have fried it in high temp. thus making it blister and the fat and the meat on the other side get’s cook medium well.

  68. A bald guy who suffered from (an extremely) hot oil session with an inexperienced barber attendant! Ouch…

  70. This is your next Lechon attempt MM, and I wager you kind of used Sprite or cola of some kind hence the bubbles. Hey, do we get a prize for correctly guessing?

  71. I know exactly what it is! It is torture! Torture for someone who suffers from high blood pressure hehe.

    Lechon Kawali? Bagnet? Chicharon? With thyme?

  74. Hi Mr. MM. Halos lahat naman lechon oh… hula ko minatamis ng chicharon! Puede bang dalawa sagot? Caramelized sago.

  77. Is it some kind of caramel with bashed up rice bubbles with thyme? MM,you’re torturing us!

    My dh says it looks like some kind of sauce with skinny tadpoles,hehehe(:

  79. That is deep fried pork rind. The reason it got those wonderful “blisters” was you sprinkled the rind with water as you were deep-frying it. The moment the cool water touches the very hot skin, the skin “cracks” or “blisters”. It’s a trick I learned from my mom.

  80. It’s freshly fried pork skin, with some short strands of hair sticking out!!! Is this part of a lechon? I would so dearly love to eat one, now after seeing this photo. Cheers!

  81. Sorry, i forgot to add the alternative to the “hair” could possibly be some herbs like rosemary, but not sure. Do you know that you by adding little bit of rosemary to roast beef, this could taste like it was lamb steak?

  82. You can achieve the same effect with a lechon, btw. As long as the skin is superhot when you pisik-pisik with water :-)

  83. Crispy skin of lechon kawali is my guess. Had to be deep fried for the blisters. it is probably some obscure animal because pork rind might be too obvious, or is ?

  84. lechon smoothered with salt and rosemary then maybe some sparkling water, and oven cooked

  85. could it be bibingkang malagkit with caramelized latik topping sprinkled with some anise?

  98. Come on guys, nearly 100 comments and no one has nailed it on the head yet… :) Some are close, but in a spelling be, you would still get the buzzer. i was actually going to wait several days before doing the post but I think I have to write it soon or I will feel the collective bad vibes from a few thousand readers… :)

  99. I didn’t peek into other’s comment and just went straight to the comment portion.

    My guess is, pig skin like lechon kawali or pata. And you got it by deep frying.

  100. As I clicked the site, even without knowing I said, wow, lechon kawali.. and found this is a teaser posting. So I studied it closely and realized its not pig skin but rather a seafood of some sort. Maybe a deef fried shrimp (that is how I cooked mine), or a sea urchin? cooked with some herbs? Walang pagyayabang, I seen it before in Quezon province, but I don’t know the name.

  103. It looks like lechon kawali, reminiscent of the the skin of the famous Ilokano chitcharon, commonly known as bagnet.

  104. Crackling. roasted in the oven 250 deg celsius for about 20 mins then 220 deg towards the last 40 mins…. what got it looking like that is having rubbed the pork skin with olive oil and sprinkled with sea salt before putting in the oven… meat part was marinated in balsamic vinegar, salt and rosemary… i wish the picture was from one of those “scratch and sniff” books : )

  107. Pork skin rubbed with salt and herbs (or those black specs could be burnt hair), grilled for bubble-ly and crispy skin

  108. Lechon skin or lechong kawali!!!
    natakam naman ako—bawal yan dito sa KUWAIT!!
    waaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh :(

  112. Oh boy, i wasn’t reading the comments above and apparently it’s not Lechon. I know na… it’s Brown Ampao! hahahaha :D

  114. My knee-jerk response upon seeing the photo was, like majority of the commenters, crisped-up, blistered lechon skin or lechon kawali. I do not know how to make either so I will not venture to guess how this state of cholesterol-laden yumminess was achieved. But now your latest comment gives me pause. Perhaps, as Avic wrote, it is indeed ampao, with 80% caramelized sugar and just 10% puffed up rice. Those bits that look like rosemary could be anise seeds (they do look like dark rice husks). Strange combination but I used to eat torta with anise all the time so I can imagine the exotic aroma of anise in ampao.

  115. Or it could be chichacorn dunked in caramelized sugar haha. With anise seeds. Bizarre but tasty I bet.

  116. Or candied citrus peel with lavander(meron ba ganon)???Skin of a warty toad brushed w achiote oil then fried til crisp??? Cant sleep til i know what it is!!! Pls pls tell us now!!!

  119. Now I remember! My mom and I used to make CHICHARON at home…I would help her cut the skin to size and then season it, and then oven dried (in the winter) and sun-dried in the summer. Then after it is nice and hard, we would render the fat on low heat until most of the fat comes out (CHOLESTEROL to the MAX…as my friend MRS.DADD-F would say!!!). Once it turns to like “kutchinta” color, we would heat the oil and drop the chiccharon. That picture looks like the initial stages of the chicharon on its way to be made into PULUTAN!!!

  121. Thickly cooked minute tapioca with brown sugar syrup? Lumpy fresh lumpia sauce? I quit.

  123. ☺ ☺ ☺ ☺……..That’s me and my tribe keeping our mouths shut.

  124. Alam ko na, parang Flaky Dough ito . something like they have in Tuna Pie .sold or serve in Pinas… di ko lang sure kung ano yung herbal toppings.

  128. At first I tought it’s a peanut brittle… but after reading the first comment I’m convinced I thought wrong.

  130. My guess without reading the comments would be skin of lechon with dried herbs.. probably rosemary.

  132. Fried fuit my second guess… what fruit skin could this be? Rambutan! That’s the effect when the hair gets crisp : )

  136. deep fried pork knuckles sprayed with brine?
    lechon kawali/crispy pata sprayed with buco juice?

  137. Okay its morning and this is killing me! Still for me it’s oven roasted pork then grilled extra. Its a dead look alike for sunday roast! If its honey, ill be blown away, even raw manuka isnt this wild in texture.

    Also the herb/spice could be caraway… i just noticed then in my toast!

  139. MM,if this is not a close-up shot of balat ng litson sa kawali, then my next guess is: bubbling sweet pili pie!!

  140. Marketman,

    I think i got it. It’s a re-fried vegetable lumpia or a turon glaze with plenty of brown sugar!!!

  142. mm, plsssss i haven`t had work done all day at home coz i was staring at this picture and refreshing this link to see if you had any new post for the answer. Have pity on us. I know it`s something cholesterolicious!!!

  147. hi! lurker here but i just have to guess: lechon skin. i remember you did the ‘slitchon’ before so i’m guessing this one is something like it but instead of slits you painstakingly ‘acupunctured’ the pig’s skin thus the fat blisters. glaze is something sweet plus rosemary. no way are those pig hairs. :s but then again, i do not cook so what do i know? :P

  148. lechon kawali with rosemary, done in the turbo broiler: boil, drain/air dry, season,broil in the turbo (convection) oven.

  149. Banana, good one… you got the answer just as I was posting it… But no sweet glaze…. For a non-cook, you nailed it pretty good! :)

  150. Wow Banana got it right!=) congratulations!!!=) I just knew it to be pig’s skin because of the blisters and what I thought was pig’s hair hehehe!=P

    You’re pretty patient MarketMan for punching “holes” in the pig’s skin before roasting it… Can’t wait to see your post on this one.=)

  151. MM–you have wild imagination, and you have the audacity to take those bungang-isip a few steps further. ”Others dream things that never were and ask why not.” r.f.k. i could sense the joy behind your posts.. more power to you, and thanks!!

  152. wow, i got it?! i am sooo thrilled as that was my first post after lurking for years. :P aside from having zero cooking skills, i am not even a lechon fan but this one might make me a convert.
    in round 3 (slitchon), a commenter named Tommy (yeah, i had to go back to that post to get his name) suggested puncturing the skin with a needle for ‘finer, less visible cuts’. so i thought maybe MM followed his advice. i used to have a chicken rosemary phase so immediately knew it was rosemary.
    AleXena, thanks! :)

  156. without checking responses, I think it’s lechon! I have been on a lechon kick these days, so maybe I am just imagining- haha.

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